There seems to be a lot of confusion among people (men ugh) about what women are actually demanding through protests and rallies and marches so I just thought that I would help clear some stuff up....
1. We are asking for SAFETY and NOT protection...there is a clear line of difference between these concepts.... safety means we get to go where we want , while wearing what we want and at what time we want to...be that in broad daylight or at night , wearing a miniskirt or a saree .....it means being able to live out our life to it's full potential without the fear of being brutally raped, assaulted or murdered... because we are equal to all men... We are just as capable as smart as efficient as all men ....we deserve safety because as HUMANS it is our birth right.....
But the extremely sad truth is that we are so far removed from a reality where we are equals because we have to live out our lives constantly in fight or flight mode....we have to rethink every little descision we make, from the clothes we wear to the routes we take to the company we are around to the transportation we take.... because we are always on guard that something might get us killed and wiped off the face of this earth
2. We demand that people stop saying 'not all men' because yes not all men are attackers but to a woman any man she comes across has the potential to be an attacker....whether it be her co worker or boss or uncle or friend or boyfriend or just a stranger....so women spend their lives always on guard and always vigilant and scared because it could be any day that we might get murdered....and this phrase is extremely counter intuitive and just plain stupid.... because all men might not brutally raped and kill a woman but all men benefit from the systemic rape and oppression of women....
And whenever the topic of women rape and assault are brought up it's always this pathetic gang of men saying "but men get raped tooo....why are you all complaining so much"....they fail to understand while men's rape cases are equally important....men dont understand that on a daily basis 86 cases of rape against women are filed and among those cases on 28 percent received a conviction (thats only 28 out of every 100 cases filed)......90 percent of rape cases don't even get filed because of systemic shaming of rape victims and maintaining of "honour" for he families of rape victims
3. It's crazy how the term "nirbhaya" is used in relation to women's rape cases ...because nirbhaya means one without fear ....but women constantly live in fear because the whole onus is always against us ....."what was she wearing ?" "Why was she sleeping alone?"....."what was she thinking ?" .....our society has normalised rape against women so much that it is a preconceived thought that men will rape because it's just in their biology.... to BRUTALLY MUTILATE AND DEFILE ANOTHER WOMAN ....men will be men ...it's on the women to protect themselves......that is why women always live in fear , just soaking in it and passing that fear on to our next generations because it is the only way we have known to survive .....
4. We do not want protection, as the inherent idea of "protecting a woman" stems from patriarchy ....it demotes us from being equal humans to mere possessions of men...and at its core women will only receive protection when the men can see in us their mothers or daughters or sisters .... We demand that you care about women's safety not because we see are your mothers or daughters.... But because we are your EQUALS....Not just because they see us as daughters, mothers, sisters. Not because we are doctors, astronauts, athletes. Not because we’ve won awards, invented something or excelled exceptionally in our fields. But simply because we are humans. Equal humans that deserve to feel safe because in the first page of our constitution we are promised equality...that all humans are to be treated equally despite their gender...we do not ask you to see in us some family member and reward us your protection....
5. WE DEMAND JUSTICE....we demand better policing , better lit streets , more surveillance , police that do not dismiss rape or assault cases , courts that give out convictions before witnesses are threatend or silenced , fear amongst people that use rape as a method of caste or communal discrimination or use rape in some false sense of honour, in the same way that someone would fear murder...and all of this information is readily available to politicians...they know exactly what they can do to make women feel safer but they won't since it's to much work and most politicians harbour rapists and assaulters in their own party.....
Mamta Banerjee a FEMALE chief minister says that she sees these protests as a conspiracy against her own party ...and then she goes on to say that she will give the death penalty to the rapists as some form of damage control...this is all in illusion as politicians like her know that there are 2 deterrents to a crime , the length of the punishment and most importantly the chance of actually being caught after committing a crime....it doesn't matter whether you will give a death sentence to the criminals if in 99 percent of times a rape case is filed the police get paid by the accusers , the victims get threatened into withdrawing their complaint , the court dates drag on , the prosecutors are paid off , evidence is mishandled and made to disappear. So it doesn't matter whether you will give capital punishments if you never go through the process of conviction of the criminals , it is all a lie and politicians who promise the death sentence are LIARS....
To all the men reading this all we demand is to be your EQUALS ....we demand equality in justice , in safety , in pay ....we demand to live out our lives how we want because it is our fundamental right...we DEMAND TO NOT BE PUNISHED FOR SIMPLY BEING BORN A WOMAN....
